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Graymere Glen
Graymere Glen is a Freehold of the Kithain in the Kingdom of Apples. Overview Dudleytown There is a town that maps refuse to show. It sits at the end of a road whose name has been forgotten. The paper-thin stones that stand in the town graveyard have long been cleansed of the carvings they once bore. An anonymous pond, grayer than Grendel’s mere, reflects the brooding buildings that have seen no human occupants for half a century. This was Dudleytown. It is no longer. There are plenty of souls who think Connecticut, more than any other place in North America, has been tamed. The insurance industry sprawls over the southern half of the state, casting shadows on the commuters who scurry to New York every day. Further east, the shipyards of the defense firms echo hollowly now that the contracts have gone. A casino on the Rhode Island border turns night into day. To the north, the Interstates carve the land into safe, manageable chunks, while Hartford sits at the center of things, looking to New York and Boston for its cues. But even this land has two remarkable features. There are the standing stones in Groton, that hold their place in the shipyards’ shadows. Strange noises fill the night air in Moodus; a small town that should know to keep its darkness quiet. And far to the north and west, just out of sight of Cornwall, is an unmarked road that leads to what was once known as Dudleytown. Settled centuries ago and abandoned again and again, Dudleytown has long been wrapped in a cloak of gloom. There were murders when the first settlers came, and, with later settlers, disappearances. Though tin could be found in the hills north of town, lead was found in the water. Children were born deformed. Madness, an unwelcome visitor, wandered in. The townspeople either died or went insane. A wise few even left, closemouthed about what they had seen. The population dwindled until, on the day that the census takers came, there was no one there. In 1958, the town was removed from the maps and forgotten by all, save for a few antiquaries and lovers of mystery. Dudleytown is still a mecca for certain types of humans. College students from UConn, or Wesleyan, or other schools that provide more learning than wisdom, often come in carloads to spend the night in this “haunted” place. To this day, not one of these groups of adventurers have lasted through the entire night. They return to the light of Danbury or Hartford, talking wildly of inhuman footprints sunk into cobblestones or beast-men with yellowed teeth attacking from impossibly thick shadows. No one believes them, of course. So-called paranormal investigators travel to Dudleytown as well. Trained, prepared, sometimes even armed, they set up their camera and motion detectors, and settle in for a long night of observation. They never make it until morning either. Their tales are of “subhuman regressions” and “teratogenic fields,” but they are just as far from the truth as the youthful thrill-seekers who precede them. In the end, it’s all the same. They’re not wanted here. Normal humans left Dudleytown for good in 1957. Now it is just a ramshackle collection of decaying frame houses and older poles of stone and brick. The long and winding road that leads from Route 44 to the town’s ruins is no longer paved, but is just a vaguely cleared track of dirt and small rocks. The lake just outside of town is a sullen gray, with a rotting dock collapsing into its waters. The town proper, or what’s left of it, is laid out along a rough grid. Main Street runs straight from the access road north to the lakeside dock, and smaller streets criss-cross it at roughly even intervals. Rusted cars sit abandoned in the streets; willow trees and weeds have grown up through the crumbling pavement. The eastern side of town has more houses while the west boasts the wreck of the tin refinery. No doubt pollution spewed by this industrial monstrosity had much to do with Dudleytown’s tragedy. Mainstreet is lined with empty shops. The First Western Connecticut Savings and Loan building lingers not three blocks from the lake. There is an empty movie theatre as well, the Paradise, the marquee of which boasts proudly that “The Day The Earth Stood Still” is in its last two weeks. The Police Station/City Hall and Fire Department are right in the center of town, where High Street crosses Main, and the lonely wreck of a Congregationalist church stands not quite a block away. On windy days, the church bell still rings. Sometimes, the sound can be heard as far away as Cornwall; on those days, the residents of that quiet town tend to stay indoors. Not from superstition, you understand; just prudence. Graymere Glen Dudleytown has been almost completely abandoned since the 1950s. Glamour bubbles up with the lead in the lake just outside of town, but somehow that metal’s gray taint has seeped into the wild magic, making it both grimmer and more awful than it ought to be. The Native Americans have long shunned the place, passing their stories on to the European settlers as they came west. Oddly enough, band upon band of settlers actually heeded these warnings, and in so doing they created an image, in their minds and in their stories, of a place that was bizarre and dark indeed. The more people heard of the tales, the wilder they became, and the more the legend of the “Dark Lake in the Woods” grew. Thus, buy the time the Marcowicz brothers actually stumbled upon the place, it was well-saturated with Glamour from centuries of tale-telling. With the town’s founding, the subsequent unfortunate consequences of this, the legend of the place merely grew, and now the Glamour that the lake spits out has the subtle flavor of nightmare. The effect of this darkened Glamour can be seen on the buildings of the town. Once wood and corrugated tin, they now bear more of a seeming of weathered stone. Close, objective observation will, of course, reveal that they are still comprised of wood and tin, but the impression given by the casual glance is of a town entirely shaped from lead-colored flowstone. Even the remaining windows, tinted the color of clouds running before a storm, seem to sag and bend. There is one main street in Dudleytown, leading north to the slate-gray dock that sags into the lake. A rowboat, once wood, but now something utterly other, bobs at the end of a rope here, its dragon-head prow snarling lazily over the lake’s small waves. The corpses of cars are everywhere, rusting away to show dragon bones beneath. Main Street itself is lined with the ruins of banks and shops, while the eastern half of town boasts the shreds of houses. The tin refinery on the west side of town has collapsed in upon itself, pulling its own walls down with gentle urging from the omnipresent willow trees. By night, the trees and buildings glow softly to enchanted eyes. The tumble-down ruins cast a dim white light, while the trees tend more toward a sickly gold. The light grows stronger as one approaches the lake, and the Father of Willows himself sometimes blazes so brightly that the hovering clouds reflect his glory. The lake itself, though, does not glow brazenly. In the darkness, it is placid and white, looking for all the world as if it was made of milk. On Festival nights, the surface of the lake changes, becoming solid and smooth as glass. The Kithain dance upon its surface for such occasions, and its glow fills them. Pity the wilder, though, who dares attempt the dance on any other night. The waters are said to swallow up those who dare touch its surface on a night not deemed sacred. It does not matter if one merely touched the surface of the pond with a questing toe. If the lake is disturbed when it does not wish to be, it will drag the offender into its depths forever. Graymere Lake This lake is one of the few remaining natural sources of Glamour in the world. What makes is so remarkable is that it stands so close to civilization; most natural sources of Glamour are hidden far away from mortal eyes. Indeed, the lake has its own defenses, in the form of the Schnorrflers, and its own magic, which induces a sort of Bedlam in any mortals who remain within the vicinity. This power has become stronger over the years: the effect which used to take ears to manifest now appears within hours. For Kithain, the most significant fact about the lake is that on certain days, mostly Kithain festival days, the surface hardens, and it may be walked upon. In fact, most of the festivals are celebrated on the lake’s silvery surface. In addition to the usual festival days, the lake has recently begun to harden on Lady Sascha’s Sainday. Though the lake is seen as a source of great power, it is regarded by most as something of a malignant entity, due its tendency to drag below, never to be seen again, any who dare touch its surface on a day not deemed appropriate. None know the reason for this, though many speculate that a curse was laid on the lake by the nunnehi. The Court Even the Kithain of Graymere Glen, almost to the individual, do not actually live in Dudleytown. There is too much power there, power that has been subtly twisted so that its wildness cannot be recognized even by the changelings themselves. Most members of the glen’s loose court live either in the woods and hills north of town, or in Cornwall, the next town over. The notable exceptions are the pookas Jeremiah and Robin, who dwell in the ruins of the tin refinery, and Lady Sascha, whose mortal existence demands that she occasionally rule in absentee, from New Haven. The court itself can barely be called such. Lady Sascha rules, yes, but she is new to power and as yet her rule is based mostly on the consent of the governed. The Graymere itself only permits Kithain with the proper capacity for awe and fear to find it, and while fae of this kind tend to have a flair for obedience, that obedience takes a great deal to command in the face of the lake’s glow. Suffice it to say, then, that the structure of Lady Sascha’s court holds, but many of the airs and graces have withered. There is a herald, and the festivals are observed, but the boundary between noble and commoner is blurry. There is a small court, on one which does not promise to grow much larger. As such, the commoners are plucked to fill noble roles, and often find themselves lording it over no one but themselves. * Lady Sascha * Robin * Jeremiah * Sir Denis Millard * Ignatz * Heather * Europa The Father of Willows & His Children Ah yes, the willow trees. They are everywhere. They line the mere and surround the town, stalking through its streets like a conquering army. Even the road away from this seat of dark magics is lined, like a cathedral entrance, with miles and miles of silent willows, their branches woven together so that no sunlight can reach the rutted road. While no one has ever actually seen the willows walk, every member of the court of Graymere Glen claims that they have turned their back on a tree, only to see it again some distance from where they thought it stood. On the shore of the lake, directly across from the stone dock, stands a tree called the Father of Willows. Noticeably larger than the others of his kind in the village, the Father has never been sighted anywhere other than his throne of earth opposite the dock. All of the willow-children’s branches droop down toward the earth, weeping. Those of the Father of Willows, however, rise to the skies. Legends have long told that, when no one is looking, willows like to pull up their roots and walk. The trees of Dudleytown give lie to the legend, however; the like to stroll occasionally with spectators, at least with fae spectators. They don’t walk often, but when they do, they can move as far as a mile at a stretch, eating up ground with long strides. While no one has ever clocked a tree moving, he best estimate maintains that they can reach up to twenty miles per hour. Obviously, the effect is only visible under Glamour, and not all of the willow trees in Dudleytown are capable of such grandiose feats. While none of the current inhabitants of the glen know the true origin of the mysterious foliage, a few of the local nunnehi do. The willows are part of the incident that initially gave the lake such a bad name among the Native Americans. According to legend, a band of evil spirits were bound into the trees by nunnehi and mortal shamans and set to guard the mere. The legend does not specify the nature of the evil that characterized the intruders, but says only that they were fierce and did not show proper respect for those spirits already in the lands they crossed. Lady Sascha and Sir Denis, in some of their more mundane moments, have actually uncovered certain artifacts of 12th century Scandinavian origin on the edges of the lake; thus, it is entirely feasible that these “evil spirits” were European settlers to whom the local population took a dislike, or perhaps itinerant Get of Fenris who, looking for new lands to conquer, found more opposition than they had bargained for. In any case, the trees seem to have abdicated their protectorate to the Schnorrflers and instead concentrate on moving in patterns which, when viewed from above, take on the appearance of some great dance. Careful observers will also note that the trees are pulling back more and more from the access road, and are starting to chole the streets of the town. Things are not yet so congested that Lady Sascha has been forced to cut down a wandering willow, but it would seem the time is fast approaching for such measures. History Dudleytown was founded in the 1780’s by the Marcowicz brothers, Polish émigré trolls who came to the trackless wilds of western Connecticut to seek their fortunes. What those brothers found was tin, resting near the surface of the rolling hills just north of town. They brought their families in, and word of their success drew other miners. Dudleytown soon grew. There was always a high percentage of Kithain among those who traveled the winding willow way, mostly trolls and nockers at first, but later pookas and at least one family that claimed the heritage of the fae. The halcyon early days rapidly faded, though. Mining towns were always rough-and-ready places, and the combination of the town’s wild nature and the power seeping out of the poisonous lake created strange chimera that leaped from dreams into the woods around the mere. Appearing as bestial, shaggy men with razor claws and yellow fangs, they were named “Schnorrflers” for the horrible snuffling they made as they shambled through the woods at night. Kithain either avoided the darkened woods or fled into Banality to escape the creatures. These latter Kithain, dimly resentful of the vague remembrance of what they’d given up, turned on those who were once their kin. Tensions grew within the town. There were murders, disappearances, and lynchings. The town soon earned a bad name, and rumors began to spread that there was something “queer” about the waters of the lake. Still, the tin was there, and where there was tin there were jobs. A new wave of settlers came. Half were families lured by the low price of land, and the other half were rough types searching for work in the mines. By the end of World War I, there were close to 5000 souls in Dudleytown. They worked the mines, labored in the refinery, served at the restaurants, drank in the bars, and raised their families in normalcy. It was not to remain so, however. There was lead, as well as power, in the water, and the mortal children were more and more frequently born deformed, or stillborn. A high incidence of madness stalked the town as well, and lead poisoning and Nervosa preyed equally upon the inhabitants. Finally, there were the Schnorrflers. Enough tales had circulated of “the beast-men of Dudleytown” that they became a self-perpetuating legend. Visiting eshu, even as they were chased out of town for the color of their skin, took note of what lurked in the trees. They spread the tale of the monsters in the woods, and the nightmares of childlings in California gave strength to chimera in Connecticut. No matter that the town’s redcap population took to hunting the beasts for sport; there were always more waiting to take bad little children, or foolish big adults, away. The population dwindled. In 1944, the tin ran out, and so did Dudleytown’s time. One by one, the remaining families left. By 1957, the only sound to be heard on Main Street was the clatter of doors blowing in the wind. Well, almost the only sound. “'Mad Marge',” a.k.a. Margrethe Hamilton, a descendent of some of the earliest settlers, refused to go. Her folk had lived in Dudleytown for a century and a half, and she would be damned if some government clerk with a meter and a warning was going to chase her off. So she stayed, and when the census people came round she hid herself and her two sons in the parts of town where few people wanted to venture. Her two boys grew up fey and wild, and when she apologized to Jeremiah and Robin for not being in a place where they could have some friends, Jeremiah just cocked his head oddly and announced, “Don’t worry, Mommy. They’re coming. Robin would nod and smile then, and Margrethe, worried by nothing she could name, would turn her attention to the problem of their next meal. Perhaps they were coming, but Margrethe never lived to see them. In 1965 she died of a stroke, leaving behind two pookas just coming to the realization of their potential. Unfortunately, there was no one for Jeremiah and Robin to play their tricks upon. Except, of course, the Schnorrflers. Perhaps there had been some fundamental change in the nature of these chimerical beasts, brought on by the fact that those whose dreams reinvented them truly loves Dudleytown. Or maybe they were just lonely. In any case, the beasts took to Robin and Jeremiah’s games, even as they gleefully shredded any who intruded upon Dudleytown’s serenity. This bucolic existence was the norm for too few years. Unknowingly shielded by the power of Graymere Glen, Jeremiah and Robin dwelt in wild splendor. The power of the lake gently redirected those who sought Dudleytown, steering away haughty trolls and vicious redcaps, and even some of the nunnehi who were gaining strength with the rise of the American Indian Movement. Those few who were strong enough to bully their way past the lake’s suggestions were faced with the ravening Schnorrflers. Jeremiah may have predicted coming friends, but for the time being, he and Robin would have to wait. Still, insulated from Banality in a place that even the chilliest of Autumn People would describe as “weird,” they continued to frolic happily. The explosion of Glamour that came with the opening of the trods in 1969 did not touch Dudleytown directly. In a place so rich with Glamour, what was the addition of a little bit more from the neighbors? None of the great Houses even remembered this cursed gate. However, the effect of the Accordance War on the glen was not so mild. In early 1970, a motley band of Kithain fleeing from a sidhe attack turned their chartreuse VW van up the access road to Dudleytown. Following them were three state police cars, each containing a pair of heavily armed sidhe warriors. The VW, not meant for such abuse, broke an axle and careened into a row of willow trees. Two of the passengers were slain instantly, and the rest were stunned as the nobles drew close for the coup de grace. Some had already sensed the power in the air here, and idly discussed annexing the area as a holding as soon as the troublesome rabble were dealt with. At this point, the power of the glen reasserted itself. Its gentle defensive weavings shredded by the desperation of the motley band’s need, it summoned its other, more direct defenses. The power called, and the Schnorrflers came. Out of the woods like avenging angels, the furry hordes descended upon the unprepared nobles. Some fled into Banality while others simply had no time to scream. Horrified, the inhabitants of the van watched as the chimera did their bloody work, convinced that they would be next. Instead, they faced an entirely different pair of furry faces. Robin and Jeremiah, arguing vehemently over who had seen the company first, opened the one working door left to the van and escorted the survivors to the splendor of Graymere Glen. For a brief time, all the survivors of the incident dwelt in the town proper, but the sheer power of the place, combined with Jeremiah and Robin’s enthusiasm for jesting with their new friends, made it a difficult domestic arrangement. Eventually, they all moved away, some to the woods outside of town, others to the relative business of Cornwall. None moved too far away, however, and all still spent the majority of their time in the glen. This was a practical decision as well as a selfish one, as the sparks and sputters of the Accordance War made safety behind a wall of snarling chimera a very appealing prospect. Dudleytown itself seemed to have acquired a taste for aggression, and those sidhe and their servants who attempted to encroach upon the glen’s boundaries were often driven off with far more force than was strictly necessary. Even after the cessation of formal hostilities, the Schnorrflers remained an implacable barrier to any of noble blood, Seelie or Unseelie, who wished to enter Dudleytown. The Coming of Lady Sascha This was until the coming of Lady Sascha, late in 1992. A graduate student of archeology at Yale University, Sascha was descended from one of the first families of Dudleytown, one that had carried within it, unrealized, a spark of sidhe blood. Choosing as her specialty the study of modern ruins, she combined her desire to return to her ancestors’ home with scholarly ambition and love of her subject. Her powers of command, along with her undisguised love for the town in both the abstract and the real, was enough to crumble the glen’s defenses. As she turned her battered Toyota pickup onto the ragged access road, the Schnorrflers came one by one out of the trees and bowed to her. She drove by, seeing nothing until she parked at the very end of the dock. Then, the Chrysalis took her, and of some things, even the whispering willows of Graymere have the dignity not to speak. It is sufficient to say that she came into her power quickly and easily, wearing her noble heritage strikingly well. It should also be said that, as the town and chimera both accepted her, the freehold’s small population soon did as well. Even Robin and Jeremiah eventually bowed to her, though the former did so far more willingly than the latter. The lake itself came all aglow for her Saining, and permitted the new Lady to dance on the waters, alone. It is impossible for her to stay permanently, of course, though she spends as much time as possible there on “research” for her thesis. While she is present, there is a semblance of formality and dignity, with certain of her unruly subjects doing their best to cloak themselves in fitting decorum. When she goes, social chaos once again seeps in, though surprisingly Robin does his best to maintain order. As for Graymere Glen’s relations with the rest of Concordia, on a surface level they are surprisingly good. Lady Sascha has received a dispensation from High King David himself to make Dudleytown her holding, and amnesty has been declared for the “crimes” of 1970. There are still plenty of courts and other places where residents of Graymere are not welcome, and this coolness is reciprocated by the glen’s inhabitants as well. They actively discourage visitors, and several (led by the sluagh Ignatz) have gone so far as to petition Lady Sascha to close the glen to outsiders. She resists this temptation, even as she resists the implacable hatred of those who lost kin at Graymere Glen. One suspects that the lake itself, in its own way, approves of her efforts. If it did not, one suspects she would not rule much longer. References # CTD. Freeholds & Hidden Glens, pp. 57-73. Category:Freeholds (CTD)